Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, a control method of the information processing apparatus, a radiation imaging system, and a storage medium.
Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a radiation imaging apparatus that generates a radiation image by directly digitizing radiation using a radiation sensor formed by adhering a phosphor to a solid-state image sensor for a wide screen, that is, a so-called flat panel detector (FPD) has been put into practical use. Such a radiation imaging apparatus employing the digital method is widely used as a replacement for a conventional radiation imaging apparatus using an analog method.
The radiation imaging apparatus can obtain the operation state of each unit of the apparatus or the like as log information and output it to the outside of the apparatus at a designated timing.
The maker or seller of the radiation imaging apparatus provides support such as repair and replacement of an apparatus that has failed. Upon receiving a notice about an apparatus failure and a repair request from medical staff such as a doctor or technician in a medical facility, the cause and portion of the failure are estimated based on the information of failure situation such as the above-described log information, and the apparatus or parts are repaired or replaced.
However, if a failure occurs in some functions of the radiation imaging apparatus, for example, a communication function used when outputting data to the outside of the apparatus or a control unit such as a CPU that generally controls internal processing, data obtaining or output to the outside of the apparatus becomes impossible. In such a situation, the time (downtime) during which the radiation imaging apparatus that has failed is unusable becomes long, and the diagnosis efficiency considerably lowers.
From this viewpoint, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-000173 discloses a technique of supplying failure information such as log data representing the operation state of an apparatus whose power supply unit has failed to a service center that is in charge of maintenance of a medical diagnostic apparatus.
In Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-000173, however, although log information or the like is output to the outside of a medical diagnostic apparatus when its power supply unit has failed, no mention is made of failures of other functions. Hence, if a control unit such as a CPU has failed, it is difficult to extract data such as log information stored in the apparatus.
The present invention has been made in consideration of the above-described problem, and provides a technique of, even in a case where some functions such as a control unit of a radiation imaging apparatus have failed, extracting desired data from the radiation imaging apparatus in which the failure has occurred.